Vision, Mission and Values

Articulating, reaffirming or rewriting vision and mission statements is often one of the key components of strategic planning. Both statements need to be carefully crafted to be perceived as appealing, inspirational, realistic, clear, concise, authentic, ambitious, and flexible. Core organizational values or guiding principles are also defined to reinforce expected behaviours, promote the desired culture of an organization, and help achieve the strategic goals. For example, organizational values may include compassion, transparency, integrity, innovation, collaboration, accountability, respect, trust, diversity, and others. In order to maintain focus and clarity most organizations tend to adopt only a few fundamental values. It should be noted that the terms vision and mission are used interchangeably across industry sectors. Regardless of the terms used, organizations ultimately need to: